We are delighted to announce that the Winner of the 2017 Essay Prize isGeorgia Henley (Harvard)
for her entry:Reading Geoffrey of Monmouth in Wales: the Basis of the Welsh Brut y Brenhinedd in Latin Commentaries, Glosses and Variant Texts

How to Correct the Sacra Scriptura? Textual Criticism of the Bible between the Twelfth and Fifteenth Century

Cornelia Linde

This study deals with Latin texts from the twelfth to the fifteenth century that discuss the emendation of the Latin Bible. After consideration of the medieval terminology for different versions of the Bible, it offers an overview of the transmission of the Latin Bible in the Middle Ages and its medieval editions. A survey of the cult of Jerome precedes an investigation of statements by textual critics about the status of the Vulgate and other versions of the Bible. The main body of the work is dedicated to the authors’ views of the textual tradition by examining their statements on the status of Hebrew, Greek and Latin manuscripts for the emendation of the Latin Bible. Finally, this study explores the struggle between consuetudo and veritas and the role of grammar in the emendation of the Latin Bible.

Cornelia Linde studied Medieval and Classical Latin and Auxiliary Sciences of History at the universities of Göttingen, Bologna and Freiburg im Breisgau. She holds an MA in Cultural and Intellectual History, 1300–1650, and a PhD in Combined Historical Studies from the Warburg Institute, University of London. Previously a post-doctoral Fellow at University College, London, she now holds a Research Fellowship at The German Historical Institute, London.